Mulcahy's Confession
by Luscious Kinney
Summary: The mystery that is Father Francis John Patrick Mulcahy is revealed... inspired by a song written by Heart. Please R+R! ;-)


Mulcahy's Confession  
  
1 A fic inspired by Heart's Ballad: All I Wanna Do  
  
All I Wanna Do:  
  
V1:  
  
It was a rainy night,  
  
When he came into sight.  
  
He was standing by the road,  
  
With no umbrella, no coat.  
  
So I pulled up alongside,  
  
And I offered him a ride.  
  
He accepted with a smile,  
  
So we drove for a while.  
  
Bridge:  
  
I didn't ask him his name,  
  
The lonely boy, in the rain.  
  
Fate, tell me it's right.  
  
Is this love at first sight?  
  
Please don't make it wrong,  
  
And stay for the night.  
  
Chorus:  
  
All I wanna do is make love to you.  
  
One night of love, was all we knew.  
  
All I wanna do is make love to you.  
  
I've got loving arms, to hold onto.  
  
V2:  
  
So we found this hotel,  
  
It was a place I knew well.  
  
We made magic that night.  
  
Oh, he did everything right.  
  
He brought the woman out of me,  
  
So many times, easily.  
  
And in the morning when he woke,  
  
All I left him was a note.  
  
Bridge:  
  
I told him "I am a flower, you are the sea.  
  
We walked in the garden, we planted a tree.  
  
Don't try to find me, please don't you dare.  
  
Just live in my memory, you'll always be there."  
  
(Chorus)  
  
V3:  
  
Ooh, we made love.  
  
Love like strangers.  
  
All night long,  
  
We made love.  
  
Then it happened one day,  
  
We came around the same way.  
  
You could imagine his surprise...  
  
When he saw his own eyes.  
  
And I said "Please, please understand,  
  
I'm in love with another man.  
  
And what he couldn't give me,  
  
Was the one little thing that you can."  
  
(Chorus)  
  
~@#@~  
  
2 Mulcahy's Confession  
  
It had been almost a year since Radar had gone home on hardship leave. If anyone understood how quiet it was, it was most definitely Hawkeye Pierce. He had gone around that day, beings as there were no casualties and wouldn't be for days, and asked everyone about their past. Father Mulcahy remained adamantly determined to be mysterious (as always) about the things that had gone on before he took up the cross and good book.  
  
Now, if you knew Hawkeye Pierce, you knew that when something caught his fancy, either he would learn his fill about it and move on, or learn nothing and drive himself crazy trying to figure out ways to learn about it and move on. From the second he felt the air of mystery about the good Father, he began to lose his sanity and his patience.  
  
One day, out of empathy for the Father, Hawkeye stopped in for confessional. He'd never confessed before, and between you and me he didn't intend to start, however, because he was more grateful than most for the Father's presence in camp he was going to do the right thing.  
  
"Hello, Father." Hawkeye softly greeted.  
  
Looking hazily up from writing his Sunday sermon, he jumped with surprise at seeing Hawkeye during confessional (which, incidentally, never really had a time frame, lol). He pushed his pencil and paper aside and offered Hawkeye a seat beside him.  
  
"How can I help you Hawkeye?" In the first few words he had spoken, Hawkeye noticed that something was wrong. He noticed the same thing in his eyes, instead of kind and patient, they had become dull and shifty.  
  
"Maybe I should be asking you the same thing." The Father quirked up at his blunt statement, then shrank into his prior positioning. He tilted his head down, looking up at Hawkeye like an ashamed eight year old boy.  
  
"I've just been thinking about my past."  
  
"That sounded like a loaded statement, Father. "  
  
"You've been asking me about my life before the war for days now. Why do you care what I used to do, what I was like when I was a teenager?"  
  
"I want to know because you are family. I wanna know what makes you such a remarkable human being and such a kind, fair man." Hawkeye looked at him squarely, seeing shame and regret building in Father Mulcahy's azure eyes"  
  
"Okay. You win."  
  
Hawkeye rubbed his hands together greedily and prepared for what he hoped was going to be a full and honest account Father Mulcahy's past. From an author's POV he should have been careful what he asked for.  
  
"I was always a very good student, from pre-school until I graduated high- school. I never had any problems, any bad influences that could have gotten in the way of a successful life,"  
  
"Go on, go on." Hawkeye urged elatedly.  
  
"One day before I had even thought of beginning the seminary, I was about nineteen, I got restless, kind of like now. I couldn't stand being like everyone said I was."  
  
"What'd they say that aggravated you so badly?" Hawkeye asked, now sitting on the floor Indian-style like a kindergartener at story time.  
  
"Everyone said then what everyone says now. He's so pure, I bet he's never been with a girl. I'll bet he's never known how nice it can be. I wish I was unstained and a virgin like Father Mulcahy..." He stopped himself as he felt his face flame in anger. "I'm sorry, Hawkeye."  
  
"As you were."  
  
"Yes, right. I got terribly restless and took off one day. I didn't tell anyone where I went, how long I'd be gone, or whether or not I'd be coming back. I was walking down one of the less busy highways that headed toward the coast and it was raining. This beautiful woman pulled to the side of the road in this extremely posh car and asked if I needed a ride. I thanked her and offered to drive since she looked tired. We drove to a hotel and she got a room. She and I both knew what was going on and I wanted it to happen."  
  
"Well so do I. Keep going." Hawkeye pushed gently.  
  
"We had this animal magnetism for eachother, it was nothing like I had ever felt before, I'm sure I'll never feel it again being celibate and all. It was love at first sight. Her skin was so soft and pale. She almost glowed when she let her long black hair hit her shoulders. We made love like strangers that entire night."  
  
Hawkeye watched the Father's facial expressions and actions as he continued. He noticed that the Father would roll his beads between his fingers to stop his hands from shaking, and once in a while he palmed the crucifix that hung from the end of the beads. Worried that something was seriously wrong with the Father he hung from every word that was said, and prepared to step in when he felt that help was needed.  
  
"I felt her in my arms as we fell asleep, and I held onto that feeling until I had fallen into a hard sleep. She slipped away what had to have been two, three hours after she knew I was dead to the world. When I woke up the next morning I found that she had gone. The only thing she left me was a note. She had written her goodbyes in a short poem."  
  
"Are you too upset to tell me what it said?"  
  
"No, but I can't remember it, and I left the note in the hotel room." He had told a bald-faced lie for the first time in decades, for as they spoke, the note rested snugly in his back pocket. "The jist of it was basically that we had done something extraordinary that night and that she really only wanted it to be a fond memory. She begged me not to look for her."  
  
"You poor man." Hawkeye now felt ashamed for making him drag up something so painful. "Look, Father. I'm really sorry. If you don't want to tell me anymore, you don't have to."  
  
"I may as well finish, but thank you. Where was I—Oh, yes. Four years later I had enrolled in seminary and I was passing with flying colors. My heart had almost healed and I hadn't been thinking of her much, maybe only once every two minutes. I was in a coffee shop sometime in December, getting supplies for my next cram session and I heard a little girl laugh.  
  
"I turned around to head toward the register when I met with eyes that might as well have been the mirror reflection of my own. Her mother was that woman, and the baby girl was mine. She nearly fainted when I wouldn't look away. I wanted to know why." The Father's chin began to tremble, but he alleviated the need to cry with a deep, calming breath. "She begged me to understand, told me that she had been married to another gentleman, and that the one small thing she wanted the most, he couldn't give her."  
  
"And you were her ideal source for that one small thing." The Father nodded feebly at Hawkeye's perceptive observation.  
  
"I haven't seen them since. That was nearly fourteen years ago."  
  
"What did you do after you two bumped into eachother?"  
  
"I went to the dean's office and changed my major to religion, began attending mass as an altar boy and took a vow of celibacy."  
  
Hawkeye bowed his head, feeling ashamed of himself. "I should probably go now. I know I've already said it, but I'm so sorry, father."  
  
"It's alright, Hawkeye. I guess you helped me... I guess I needed to get that out. Just make sure it doesn't get out any further." He smiled wanly, and his eyes recaptured that familiar compassionate serenity.  
  
Hawkeye left the tent a discomfited, deeply effected, and changed man. Not in the sense that he was going to change what he said and did with certain women, but that he would never again have the nerve to judge another book by its cover. 


End file.
